


A Gift of Fear

by Alys_Brauer



Series: BlackIce Week - July 28 to August 3, 2013 [1]
Category: Guardians of Childhood & Related Fandoms, Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: BlackIce Week, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 08:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alys_Brauer/pseuds/Alys_Brauer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pitch is tired of being alone. The Man in the Moon offers him a gift in order to teach him to be a better person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gift of Fear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MirellaPryce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirellaPryce/gifts).



> Contribution to Day 6 of BlackIce Week on tumblr (only-1-a.tumblr.com). Open Topic  
> Inspired by random notes jotted down on the bedroom wall of my room mate and co-author Mirella_Pryce.

For a moment, just a moment, Jack had though that everything was going to be all right. She was safe. Clear of the ice that had begun to crack underneath both of them, just as he had promised. In that moment, that all too short span of time, it seemed as though everything had worked out; he almost couldn’t believe it. Against all odds, she was safe, the ice was holding.

Carefully, they both picked themselves up, their brown eyes meeting across the ice. She smiled first, and he grinned back, all the while trying to keep his careful balance on the slick surface beneath his bare feet. They were both safe! Relief washed through him and carried with it a flood of incredulous laughter that bubbled to his lips.

Then the moment shattered.

He reached for her as he laughed, but beneath him the ice cracked and gave way. He didn’t even have time to cry out in surprise. The relieved laughter died, cut off as he was plunged below the surface. Faintly, he heard his sister call out.

“Jack!” The icy cold water closed over his head. It blurred the panic in her eyes, the ice cutting her reaching hand from view.

Intense cold hit him like a thousand knives all over his body. It sliced through him, right to his very core. He couldn’t breathe, the thought flashed across his mind, swiftly followed by the pain. Jack closed his eyes against it, trying to move, to swim, to…do something. There was a voice, a crying voice, scared, calling for him. Weakly, belatedly, he tried to fight for the surface.

He reached, for air, for warmth, for the voice, for  _her_. He’d promised everything would be all right if she believed, and he couldn’t, he  _wouldn’t_ break his promise. Not to her.

With every struggle the knives of cold lanced through him again. His thoughts began to scatter, taken over completely, first by the pain, then by the cold, and finally by the darkness. He couldn’t fight anymore; he was cold, too cold. His clothing dragged him down, pulling him deep into the icy depths of the pond that had always been a place of fun and laughter. No longer. It was dark, so dark.

The realization hit him then: he was going to die. He was going to die here, in the dark and the cold, all alone and in so much pain. Jack realized he was going to die, and he felt more fear than he ever had before. Terror washed over him with the darkness.

~ * ~

Hunger, its deep primal need gnawed at him. It had been long, too long, since he had been able to have the luxury of feeding on fear. He was weakening, with each passing decade he became less and less visible – and more and more ravenous. The fears of adults were so fleeting, so  _bland_. The fears of children, ah those now, they were a true delicacy, and one he had been too long denied because of those pesky Guardians. The  _chosen_  of the Tsar, it made him ill.

Pitch had nothing left. He was alone, unseen, and unheard, completely invisible to everyone but his foes. All the while the Guardians spread their hope and light. Fools! Could they not see the truth? Fear was a necessity! It would never go away, never disappear completely. Yet they still fought him, challenged him at every turn. Unfortunately, all that meant for Pitch was that while he would always exist, as long as they continued to fight him, marginalize him, he would always exist like  _this_. He would always be in the world, but only as a pale reflection of what he truly could be, and alone, alone for all eternity. The Guardians did not realize how cruel their precious Tsar Lunar actually was. Did any being deserve such a fate?

As the hunger continued to eat away at him, Pitch kept to the shadows of the trees, waiting, always waiting. Soon night would be here, and then he would hunt. No matter how dissatisfying the hunt was these days, he had learned that he would have to take what he could find, and hope it sustained him until the next night. The King of Shadows looked up at the darkening sky, and scowled as he saw the Tsar’s ship already cresting the horizon. “Here to gloat ‘old friend’?” he hissed, his golden eyes narrowed in a glare of utter loathing as a moonbeam danced near him, but just far enough out of reach so he couldn’t taint its infernal light.

Suddenly, he tensed, his eyes turning away from the moon, and toward the position of a nearby town. “What is this?” he crooned to himself, gathering his shadows. The sweet aroma of fear drifted toward him on a touch of breeze; fear, and anguish. He smiled, a toothy, nasty grin, his eyes glinting with the barely suppressed hunger he felt. Oh, oh dear, how absolutely wonderful, delicious even. With hardly a though, his shadows swirled, transporting him instantly to the source.

What delectable terror.

“Jack. Jack…Jack!” The girl child knelt on the ice, her head in her hands, shoulders shaking as she cried. She continued to repeat the name, over and over, her sobs becoming louder and more desperate.

Pitch circled the girl, his shadows reaching out to touch her. Anguish filled the air, bitter-sweet. He licked his lips, smirking, leaning over the girl. Yet, even as his fearlings touched her, and she shivered, her fear was not what he had scented earlier. This girl would not offer him the gourmet meal of fear he had tasted on the wind. Oh, he could make her fear, he had no doubt. Night was coming, his time, and he could make her into quite a tasty morsel, but there was fear already here.

His golden eyes easily pierced the gathering gloom, searching for that wonderful source of fear. It was near, it had to be. Then he saw it, the hole. Black water lapped at the ragged edges of the broken ice, calling to him. Here? Was it here that he could sense the fear? Leaving the girl for now, he could return for her later, Pitch glided over to the hole, peering down into the dark depths of the pond. Yes. Yes, here it was.

Impatience stole through him, hunger and a lust that took him completely by surprise. This fear, it was so…it was so potent. It drew him in as no other had in a long, long time. Stepping forward, he sunk through the icy depths, not at all perturbed by the wet or the cold. He was a shadow after all, such things did not touch him, but they touched others, humans. And in humans, they caused fear. Which was where this wondrous scent was coming from, this beguiling combination of fear and darkness.

It did not take Pitch long to find the source of it. It was coming from a boy, a young man in fact. That was surprising, someone as old as this should not produce the same kind of pure fear that could arouse such a fierce hunger in him. He moved to the bottom of the pond, looking up at the boy as he slowly drifted down toward him, his clothing pulling him deeper into the shadows. Pitch’s eyes narrowed, the shadows rose from him, twining around the boy, scenting, tasting; he was dead. There was no getting around it, the brown haired male was dead, yet fear still pulsed off him in such strong waves.

He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes in wonder, his mouth half open. Oh, what a perfect feast. Fear of the cold. Fear of the dark. Fear of loss. Fear of broken promises. Fear of death. It was an intoxicating array of fears, swirling in and around each other, separate and yet part of a whole. What a feast indeed. It was only too bad that this boy was gone now, that he could not instill yet more fears in him. The taste of these fears, his fears, was indescribable. He wanted more, he  _needed_  more, and yet, as with all things on this cursed planet, it would be denied him.

Pitch snarled, the shadows wrapping tighter around the unresisting boy. So much promise, so much and he had arrived too late to fully enjoy it!

Above them, far above the water and the Earth, Tsar Lunar gazed down at the same hole in the ice. He sent a moonbeam down, showing him what had caught both his and Pitch’s attention. The little light streamed down, through the water, and touched the boy.

The shadows of the Nightmare King recoiled, hissing at the light, forced to release the human their master desired. Pitch himself growled, glaring first at the light, and then up at the moon above. “Must you take everything?” he snarled. There was only so much fear left that he could feed upon, yet this meddling princeling wanted to take it all from him. “It was not even I who created this fear!”

As usual, the moon did not respond to him. Yet there was something, something in the air, a power. Pitch recoiled further, drawing away from the moonbeam’s intensifying light. What? What was happening!?!

The Man in the Moon had seen something, a quality that the boy possessed that he believed was worth preserving. Power gathered around him, and Pitch had to throw up a wall of shadows to protect himself, withdrawing from his meal, pushed back. He snarled a curse, wanting to rail at the selfish Tsar. The urge to kill, maim, destroy, all rose in him. The urge to retaliate, to take revenge for all that he had lost because of the Tsar and his family, coursed through him. His shadows pulsed, crying out for it, feeding from his anger, and feeding it as well.

Yes. Yes. Take revenge. Kill. Maim. Destroy. Destroy it all. Spread fear. Sow Terror.

Then, just as suddenly as the light had come, it faded, leaving Pitch his darkness. The Nightmare King looked up in confusion, and saw floating above him the boy. The same boy, but different. His brown hair had lightened to white and there was…there was a power about him that hadn’t been there before. He hissed, eyes narrowing. Guardian. The Man in the Moon had created himself a new Guardian!

His fingers twitched at his side, and a scythe made of shadows sprang readily to his hands. No! Not this time. He would not let another enemy be created. He would destroy him before he even had a chance to realize what he had become!

Raising the scythe above his head, Pitch was about to strike when something familiar touched his senses.

 _Fear. Terror._   _The dark, the cold. He was scared._

Was this…

The shadow weapon dissolved, and Pitch moved closer. His shadows rose in seeking tendril again, easily cutting through the shadows and wrapping around the still unconscious newly-made spirit. Yes. It was coming from him. The wonderful, exquisite fear was pulsing off him again. Pitch looked up through the ice again, knowing that the Tsar was still regarding him.

“What is this?” he hissed suspiciously.

‘ _A gift_.’ A voice seemed to say, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“For me?” Suspicion tinged his voice. The shadows pulsed with their master’s unease. “A gift for me? From you?” the cynical laughter echoed eerily underwater.

 _‘Born in fear and darkness, but with a centre much stronger than you could comprehend. A gift for you Pitch Black, formerly Kozmotis Pitchner. You do not wish to be alone, I do not wish to see the children of Earth suffer in our war._ ’

“Are you trying to bribe me?” He growled incredulously, his eyes narrowing. How dare he! That arrogant fool! And yet…and yet. Tendrils of shadow tightened around the boy exuding such sweet fear, drawing him closer to Pitch.

‘ _I am merely offering a truce. He died steeped in your elements, yet he was born of my life. If you content yourself with this Pitchner, if you cease your war, you need no longer be alone. If you fight, if you seek to conquer, he will not stay with you.’_

Pitch snarled and yanked the boy toward him with his shadows. “You overstep yourself,” he growled as his arms wrapped around the boy.

‘ _His name, your name, is Jack Frost.’_

Pitch looked down in surprise, seeing a pair of ice blue eyes blinking open, staring at him, wide with fear. He drunk it in, feasting on that fear like a starving man. It was so perfect,  _he_  was so perfect.

Jack, his name was Jack, looked up into the face of a nightmare. Demonic golden eyes captured and held his own gaze, projecting fear at him, terror so great it was suffocating. Jack inhaled sharply, jerking, trying, briefly, to pull away from this dark man wreathed in shadows.

“You belong to me Jack Frost.”

He froze at that voice, so cruel and yet…in in, Jack thought he could hear a touch of sorrow, a hint of great need and loneliness.

Leaning down, Pitch claimed the boys lips, tasting him directly, and groaned inside. It was too much, he would never be able to give this up, the fear! After a long moment, he pulled back. The light from the moon filtered through the ice, bathing them both in a soft blue glow, and Pitch saw the fear in the boy’s eyes beginning to shift. It became something new, yet it was just as sweet and seemed to reach out to fill the emptiness inside the Shadow King.

 

“Forever.”


End file.
